Mason City, IA- When the fire alarm rings, fire fighters say there are two things that matter.
"Time and personnel are critical to our job," said Tom Wollner, President of the Mason City Firefighters Association.
Right now, Mason City firefighters said one of those could be compromised. The city council is asking the department to cutback on their overtime hours.
Each day the department is staffed with eleven firefighters. In order to save money, when one person calls in sick, they won't be bringing in a replacement. Working with only ten fire fighters is raising concerns.
"Our experience has shown that eleven is the bare minimum," said Wollner.
Wollner believes it's a matter of saving lives and property.
The City Administrator said the decision is based on budget.
"This year we've had an extraordinary amount of overtime's that had to be paid," said Brent Trout.
Both, Trout and the fire fighters said the department suffered a lot of unexpected injuries. Trout said they went well over budget in overtime costs.
"Every shift that we paid fire fighters for overtime coming directly from general fund reserves," said Trout.
Trout admits only ten people can be a struggle for the crew.
"We had to do something to stop the spending," said Trout.
He hopes they don't have to run with ten person crew too many times but when they do he's taking all of their concerns into consideration.
"It's the starting point for a discussion on how we handle overtime in a fire department," said Trout.
Eventhough, Wollner said he'd like to see the policy change. He said it doesn't change their commitment to the job.
"We will do our best with what we got no matter what," said Wollner.
Trout believes this is a temporary fix to the budget. He said July is a new fiscal year and the department already has $15,000 extra to spend on overtime.
Until then, Trout and the Fire Cheif will keep eachother updated on how things are running.
